Today saw the last 16 stage of the Masters come to an end and there was another shock as Mark Allen defeated reigning world champion John Higgins while Ryan Day whitewashed a poor Joe Perry to progress…
Results from Global Snooker:
Ryan Day 6-0 Joe Perry
82(52)-24, 74(67)-16, 68(66)-29, 74(53)-27, 74(48)-6, 81-45(45)
John Higgins 3-6 Mark Allen
71-53, 0-77(69), 0-73(46), 16-73, 70(39)-46(41), 6-124(51,73), 87(63)-47, 1-69, 0-108(49,57)
Having reached five consecutive ranking event semi-finals John Higgins was a big favourite with many for this tournament but despite his good form, he could not bring it to the table today and Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen took full advantage to record a 6-3 win.
Undoubtedly a key moment in the match came in frame four when referee Jan Verhaas called a controversial foul on John Higgins when he was in with a chance to level the match at 2-2 heading into the mid-session interval. At the time John was cueing over another red ball and the referee believed that he had touched it with either his hand or cue, much to the Scot’s surprise. Those of you who are in the UK can judge for yourselves by clicking this link.
From there it was almost all Allen as while he was not at his fluent best, Higgins could only record a pot success rate of 81%, not good enough at this level to beat most players.
It probably would have been good enough to beat Joe Perry tonight however as the world number 12 struggled badly against Ryan Day and was beaten 2-0 in under two hours. From an early stage it was clear that he was not comfortable out there for whatever reason and the most concerning aspect must have been just how far he was missing his shots by.
Still, Ryan played solidly and will be pleased to progress beyond the last 16 stage of the competition for the first time…